A fax machine hummed to life at Seoul’s KSPO DOME on August 10th, its paper slowly revealing a bomb threat that would evacuate 2,000 K-pop fans just two hours before showtime. Venue security teams monitor social media for threats and scan digital networks for suspicious activity. But they were undone by technology from 1980.
The threat came from a familiar source. According to Chosun Daily, someone has been sending bomb threats to Korean institutions for two years, always via fax, always claiming to be Japanese lawyer Takahiro Karasawa – whose identity was hijacked by internet trolls. This concert evacuation marked incident number 44.
Outside the venue, thousands of fans who’d traveled from across Korea stood confused and disappointed, watching SWAT teams and bomb disposal units file into what should have been their concert venue. The promoters had made the only choice they could – evacuate everyone based on a single sheet of fax paper. For two and a half hours, police searched every corner of the Olympic Gymnastics Arena. They found nothing.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Cyber Investigation Unit can track skilled hackers and trace complex digital crimes. But a fax from Japan? That’s their kryptonite. International fax transmissions don’t leave the digital traces that modern investigations rely on.
The pattern reveals disturbing sophistication. Starting with political targets in 2023 (“Kill Lee Jae-myung”), escalating to public facilities on Children’s Day 2024, then political party headquarters in January 2025, and now entertainment venues and schools. Each fax includes threatening messages – “This world cannot be saved” – forcing authorities to take every threat seriously.
These incidents show an uncomfortable truth about modern security systems. While Korea has some of the world’s most advanced digital security systems, a simple fax machine connected to an international phone line can still bring major venues to a standstill. The attacks specifically target the gap between old-school communication methods and modern security procedures.
Two men in their 20s were arrested in Japan for similar threats, but new faxes keep coming. Korean police must wait weeks for Japanese authorities to share online fax connection logs for each incident – by which time several more threats have arrived.
The numbers tell the story: 26 fax threats, 18 email threats, 44 total disruptions. Each one triggers evacuations, SWAT deployments, and business losses – all from someone with access to a fax machine and a phone line.
The incident at KSPO DOME shows how fax technology keeps appearing in unexpected ways. While the 2,000 evacuated concert-goers might have assumed they were living in a completely digital world, an old-school communication method proved capable of derailing their evening plans.
The KSPO DOME incident highlights an uncomfortable reality: institutions must defend against threats from every technological era simultaneously. While Korean venues upgrade their digital security, they’re still tethered to fax machines for legitimate business needs – creating vulnerabilities they never anticipated.